Nation/world briefs

Thais protest despite crackdown: Plainclothes police officers forced a protester into a taxi during an anti-coup demonstration in Bangkok on Sunday. The ruling junta deployed thousands of security forces on the streets to thwart small-scale protests denouncing last month’s military coup. Hundreds of protesters came out and several were detained, but there was no violence.

The president of Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia heavily supported by Russia, resigned Sunday after less than a week of chaotic unrest during which demonstrators stormed the presidential administration building and the Kremlin sent high-level emissaries from Moscow in a bid to calm the situation. On Friday, Parliament voted to oust the president, Alexander Ankvab, designated its speaker, Valery Bganba, as the acting president, and scheduled an early presidential election for Aug. 24. Russia recognized Abkhazia as a sovereign state after fighting and winning a brief war with Georgia. Most of the world does not regard Abkhazia as a legitimate state.

Nigeria

Dozens feared dead in blast at soccer game

Dozens of people were feared dead following an explosion on Sunday evening in northeastern Nigeria, with Boko Haram militants believed to be behind the attack, officials said. The attack took place near a primary school where there are also a number of beer halls in the town of Mubi in Adamawa state, one of the three states under a year-old emergency rule imposed by President Goodluck Jonathan to fight Boko Haram, which seeks to impose Islamic rule in Nigeria. David Dauda, who witnessed the blast, said he saw at least 30 bodies following the explosion. “The blast occurred shortly after people are dispersing from a football playing ground. … Just few minutes after soldiers patrol vehicle left the place then we heard a blast,” Dauda said. Nigeria’s northeastern region has suffered five years of increasingly deadly assaults by Boko Haram, whose fighters have targeted towns and villages in a string of bomb and gun attacks. At least 2,000 civilians have been killed in such attacks this year alone.

Cameroon

3 missionaries freed in Boko Haram area

Two Italian priests and a Canadian nun, kidnapped for nearly two months near Cameroon’s border with Nigeria in a region rife with Boko Haram militants, were freed, Cameroon’s communications minister said Sunday. The minister would not discuss the terms under which the three were released. But past kidnappings of Europeans by Boko Haram in northern Cameroon have involved the release of prisoners, along with payments of cash. The three were flown to Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.

India

Three arrested in gang rape of two teens

Three men have confessed to the gang rape and slaying of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a mango tree in northern India, police said, in a case that has recast a light on rampant sexual violence in the country. Authorities are searching for two additional suspects in last week’s attack on the cousins in Uttar Pradesh state.

Mexico

Warrants out for execs of Citigroup subsidiary

Mexican authorities have issued arrest warrants for former executives of Citigroup’s Mexican subsidiary Banamex in an investigation of a $400 million fraud scandal. Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam confirmed Friday that authorities were seeking the former executives. He declined to say how many were involved.